Martin O'Neill recently criticised end-of-season friendlies on the basis that players "should be sitting on a beach" by the time June rolls around.

Early Doors suspects England probably expended less energy against Trinidad and Tobago last night than they would have done playing Frisbee and buying ice-creams.

They might as well have brought on the rum punch and limbo dancers the moment a steel band struck up with a calypso version of 'God Save The Queen'.

Although Early Doors cannot ever remember that dreariest of national anthems sounding so listenable, it was hardly the kind of rendition

Wayne Rooney faces a possible assault charge, according to The Sun, after he was accused of spitting at a paparazzi photographer.

The Manchester United forward was involved in an altercation after leaving a restaurant in central London and was interviewed under caution by police - not arrested. He is thought to deny the allegation.

Out in the real world, spitting at someone is considered common assault - if pavements could press charges - but on the pitch the worst you can expect is a red card and your own chant.

Take El-Hadji Diouf. He was fined for spitting at a Celtic fan while at

"A war machine built by spending lots of money."

What was Claudio Ranieri talking about yesterday? The US army? Paul
McCartney's legal team? Secret
government plans to equip nationalised banks with nuclear launch pads? Or Max
Clifford's publicity empire, built one
cancer-stricken 13-year-old father at a time?

No, of course not, he was talking about Chelsea. Even if the days when Roman
Abramovich was world football's
biggest spender seem like a quaint anachronism, the tinker man is never slow to
reflect on his misfortune in getting sacked at the height of the splurging years,
having just

If you're expecting rare words of praise for Liverpool in today's blog, Early Doors has bad news for you: it watched the Chelsea game last night.

Although if you really need validation from a sarky blog after your side has just thrashed the pants off Real Madrid, you're probably overestimating the importance of sarky blogs.

Rafa Benitez has been hotly tipped to take over at the Bernabeu in the summer but last night's demolition job might make him think again. He arguably took a step down when he moved to Anfield from Valencia after a Liga and UEFA Cup double in 2004 - on present form, a move

Yak 1 n. large ox with shaggy hair, humped shoulder and large horns.

Yak 2 n. Nigerian striker who scores when fed.

Strong as an ox, but without the hair, hump and horns, last night Yakubu was the subject of one of the more prophetic terrace chants of recent weeks.

'Feed the Yak and he will score' sang the crowd. So Everton did. And he duly obliged. Three times, as Everton beat Norwegian no-hopers SK Brann 6-1.

Even Andrew 'Andy' Johnson managed to get on the scoresheet - twice, for heaven's sake - although quite how the tune 'der der der der, An-dee Jooohn-son' translates to 'give AJ the ball

After Thursday's events at Heathrow, Alan Shearer's characterisation of Newcastle under Kevin Keegan as "kamikaze" was, to say the least, unfortunate.

The Sun's news and sports departments are obviously not on speaking terms, with the smoking wreckage of a Boeing 777 adorning the front page and the headline "Kamikaze Keegan" on the back.

Unfortunate timing apart, Shearer's comments were presumably made in blissful ignorance of the facts that Japan resorted to such attacks only when the Second World War was a lost cause, and that the pilots involved tended to die in a massive fireball.

In an

BBC bosses are not noted for their sense of humour - as shown by the continued existence of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

But Mark Thompson and his fellow mandarins might have broken off from sacking thousands of people to allow themselves a brief smile yesterday evening.

Even at the end of four appalling and almost entirely goalless hours of football between Middlesbrough and Sheffield United - broadcast in full on BBC1 - there was a silver lining.

Fine, their Sunday afternoon and Wednesday night prime time schedules had been blown to bits as two tedious sets of 90 minutes segued

From the moment that evolutionary happenstance first endowed mankind with intelligent self-awareness, the human animal has worked unceasingly to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

And, following aeons of tireless endeavour in the field of science, we have now reached a state of progress in which we can be proud that our species has flown to the moon, invented the iPod and canonised Jade Goody.

Yet there are some questions out there which are still outside the grasp of even our most distinguished physicists, philosophers and gossip columnists:

Which is better: smooth or crunchy?

Connery,